Page 25 of The Backup Groom
“What else? Tennis elbow. Took me almost a year to recover from that. Not fun.” I waved toward the front counter. “I guess I should get back to work. Let me know my prize since I obviously won our bet. Steak and lobster will work. Or how about a new car?” I gave her a cheesy grin.
“I wasn’t finished presenting my argument,” Amber retorted.
“I’ll give you one more shot to convince me,” I said. “That’s it.”
“Deal,” she said, thinking about it. “Okay, I’ve got a good one. If you don’t think this is romantic, you don’t have a heart.”
“Okay, go for it.” I signaled to my right, like I was hosting a game show. “Let’s put sixty seconds on the clock. Good luck.” I clicked an imaginary stopwatch. “And . . . go!”
“I won’t need that much time.” Amber leaned forward tauntingly. “Imagine the anguish and torture of having a crush on someone, but not being able to express your feelings.”
Okay, I didn’t see that one coming.
I was a plane at the airport during a blizzard.
Somebody needed to de-ice me because I sat there, frozen.
Where the heck had Amber gotten that from?
And I certainly didn’t have to imagine the anguish and torture.
I was living it.
Every. Single. Day.
“Everyone knows Clark Kent has feelings for Lois Lane,” she added. “Women can sense these things from a mile away, you know.”
Wait a minute.
Was Amber saying she knew I had a crush on her?
Or was this one big fat coincidence?
What was going on here?
And why were my palms sweating?
I didn’t know how to respond to her or if I was supposed to.
Amber continued, “Clark tries to muster the strength to tell Lois the truth. We all want him to confess, more than anything, but at the same time we feel his pain, and we suffer with him. Because we know if he divulges what’s in his heart, he may instantly change the dynamic he shares with Lois, or worse, scare her off if she doesn’t feel the same. Imagine that.”
Once again, this was my life. No imagining was necessary.
Amber sighed. “The poor man fumbles along, hoping that one day she will notice how much she means to him. He’s banking on his patience and on things happening at the right time, knowing,anticipating, that one day she’ll come around and see the real person standing right in front of her. Like a slow-burn romance, it’s taking its own sweet time to blossom and to get to the finish line.”
My feelings for Amber have been simmering for over a year.
It doesn’t get much more slow-burn than that.
The parallelism between Clark Kent’s situation and mine was unreal, but it really hit home, the more I thought about it. The only thing that was missing on my end was a cape and the ability to fly. Amber was right. That movie had plenty of romance with sci-fi elements.
There was something else I realized as well.
I blinked twice when it hit me.
I’m Superman.
“And furthermore,” Amber continued, “There’s a point in the movie when—”
